Steve Scalise unsure about GOP border plan

Incoming House Majority Whip Steve Scalise declined to say whether he supports the House Republican border-crisis proposal, and says President Barack Obama could solve the problem on his own.

“I’ve always said from the beginning, we need to pass a bill that solves the problem,” the Louisiana Republican told a clutch of reporters in the Capitol Thursday, when asked if House plan should be narrowly focused.

Text Size

-

+

reset

“The president can solve this problem today but he’s chosen not to,” Scalise, a Louisiana Republican, continued. “There’s a rule he can waive right now where a border agent can’t even go and track a busload of drug dealers crossing the border. The president won’t even change that. If he won’t change it, we ought to take the lead and do it ourselves.”

Scalise is not yet whip — he takes the job next Thursday, when California Rep. Kevin McCarthy becomes majority leader — but his apparent unease with the emerging plan could portend problems among conservatives.

House Republicans will meet Friday at 9 a.m. to discuss their plan, which was written primarily by Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas). The meeting comes as House Republicans and Senate Democrats grow increasingly skeptical that they can send a bill to President Barack Obama before the August recess.

An emergency funding measure to deal with the border crisis faces steep hurdles in getting to Obama’s desk before the August recess. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), who’s drafted the money side of the $1.5 billion funding measure, said the reaction from House Republicans to the plan was “mixed.”

Meanwhile, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is intensifying his criticism of Obama, saying the president has “flip-flopped” on changing a 2008 law that allows many migrants to stay in the United States as they await trials on whether to send them to their country of origin.

“This is a problem of the president’s own making,” Boehner said Thursday morning. “And then he … says he wants to solve the problem so that we can stop this influx, but then he changes his mind. We’ve got a president that’s AWOL. The president ought to get engaged at this if he actually wants something to happen.”

Boehner and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California were scheduled to meet with presidents from Central American countries Thursday.

During a meeting with House Democrats from Texas and officials from the Rio Grande Valley area, Pelosi declined to weigh in on the House GOP’s border-crisis plan, adding a subtle dig: “I haven’t seen what they’ve said they think they can pass.”

“I look forward to seeing what the amount is, hopefully with no offsets, hopefully with no language that changes immigration,” she continued. “Because the most important thing that we can do to use this crisis as an opportunity is to pass comprehensive immigration reform.”

House Republicans have tentatively proposed $1.5 billion in emergency funding, which will be offset. They have yet to unveil formal language.